


There and Back Again

by Whovian1963



Category: Blackadder
Genre: BBC, Gen, Historical, Humor, World War I, some historical inaccuracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 03:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4085338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whovian1963/pseuds/Whovian1963
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Blackadder was pretty sure he was going to die here, although he wasn't quite sure where ‘here’ was. He was sure he had seen George go down pretty early in the charge and assumed the same thing had happened to Baldrick as well. His right leg felt like it was on fire, but he knew that couldn't be the case, if it was he would be able to see where he was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue and Chapter 1

Captain Blackadder and his men were lined up by the ladders, waiting to go over the top.  
“So we are, in fact, going over” Lieutenant George said “This is, as they say, it.”  
“Yes, unless I can think of something very quickly” Blackadder replied  
“Company, one pace forward” a voice in the distance said  
“There’s a nasty splinter on that ladder sir” Private Baldrick said “A bloke could hurt himself on that.”  
“Stand ready” the voice called out  
“I have a plan sir”  
“Really Baldrick? A cunning and subtle one?” Captain Blackadder asked  
“Yes sir”  
“As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?”  
“Yes sir”  
“Well, I'm afraid it's too late. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was better than my plan to get out of here by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman round here?”  
A whistle blew in the distance.  
“Good luck everyone”  
Captain Blackadder blew his whistle.

Chapter 1

Captain Blackadder was pretty sure he was going to die here, although he wasn't quite sure where ‘here’ was. He was sure he had seen George go down pretty early in the charge and assumed the same thing had happened to Baldrick as well. His right leg felt like it was on fire, but he knew that couldn't be the case, if it was he would be able to see where he had fallen. And if he was to die here in this hole in no-man’s land he would never be found, and-“Oomph!”

Something, or rather someone had just fallen onto him from above 

“You know you could use a little more decorum around me, I am a Captain you know” he said, only half-joking

“Blackadder is that you?” a familiar and not exactly welcome voice said.

“Darling?”

“That’s Captain Darling to you”

Blackadder sighed, he did not want to spend his final moments talking to a desk jockey with a pencil fetish, he'd rather spend it talking to Private Baldrick or Lieutenant George; actually that was a lie, he'd rather spend it with a fat, bad tempered, sex obsessed gorilla and if that couldn't be achieved then by himself, the only way he could be sure of an intelligent conversation.

“Blackadder”

“Yes”

“W-where are we?”

“I think we're in a small villa in Spain, just outside the capital Madrid, drinking white wine and being waited on by attractive Spanish waitresses. Where do you think we are Darling?”

“For God’s sake man, be serious, we're stuck in the middle of no-man’s land and nobody is coming to get us” Darling practicality hissed

“Ah, well there could be that as well”

“Hello?” a voice said 

Darling jumped “W-who said that?”

“Up here you prat”

Blackadder recognised the voice and turned his face upwards “Hello Major, nice of you to join us.”

Major Leia Stewart was bending down at the top of the pit so as not to get hit by the bullets being fired from the Germans “Hello Captain, enjoying your field trip?”

“I'm a Captain too” said Darling to no-one in particular

“I have to say Stewart I’m not” said Blackadder in answer to the Major‘s question

“No me neither, can you two walk?”

“My leg feels like a hoard of hungry fire ants have set up camp in it and have decided to have a gourmet banquet where everyone is invited” Blackadder said as way of an explanation.

“Darling what about you?” 

“I think a may have taken a bullet to the shoulder Major. But I can walk”

“Perfect” Blackadder heard the Major mutter “Right here’s the plan” Stewart ducked to avoid a low flying bullet “Blackadder, I'm going to carry you and Darling you're going to bring up the rear.”

“I believe Darling has brought up the rear a few times before”

“Oh shut up Blackadder”  
“Take your time, don't rush; it’s not like I'm sitting like a duck in no-man’s land” the Major called down

“Quite, Darling could you give me a leg up” Blackadder considered for a moment “And try not to cop a feel while you're at it”

“Don't flatter yourself Captain” Darling sneered

After a few moments of struggling and muted insults between him and Darling, Blackadder was out of the hole and lying on his back. Now that he could see back down into it, he found it really wasn’t that deep, two meters at the most. He didn’t feel bad about making Darling help him to get out though, even if the bugger did have a bad shoulder. He’d been sitting behind a desk since the start of this goddam war while he, Edmund Blackadder had been stuck in the filthy trenches for the past three years with only idiots for company

“You okay?” the Major’s concerned face appeared into his view.

“Spiffing Stewart, what about you?” 

Leia rolled her eyes 

“Y-you haven’t gone and left me have you?!” the other Captain’s panicked voice called out from in the hole that Blackadder had been stuck in only moments before.

“As much as we would like to Darling, no.” Blackadder shouted out

“Come on Captain, see if you can reach my hand” the Major leaned over the side of the pit.

“I can’t reach, the pit’s too deep”

“Come on Captain, don’t be a wimp”

“What’s that Major, I think I can hear a bomb coming” Blackadder called out. He saw Leia’s hand grab hold of something. She gave him a grateful look.

“N-now what” Darling was holding his injured arm and looking around the bombed out field, as though he was expecting a few Gerry’s to come sneaking round some on the barbed wire, cartoon style with sneaky grins.

“We stick to the plan” Leia replied

She threw Blackadder's arm over her shoulders and set off moving as fast as she could through the rain of bullets 

‘What did I do to deserve this’ Blackadder thought before he passed out from the pain in his leg.


	2. Chapter 2

Blackadder regained conscious to the sound of distant gunfire. He was being placed on a stretcher and was aware of another pain this time just above his left eye. It was bleeding pretty badly as he couldn't see out of said eye. Leia Stewart’s face appeared, covered in mud and blood and a wild look in her eyes. Eyes that had seen too much, Edmund thought. His must share the same look; at least the one that wasn't hidden by blood.

“Am I going to die?” he asked suddenly fearful

The Major smiled sadly “No Captain, you might not be able to walk again and you'll have a nasty scar above your eye but you'll live”

Well that was a relief 

“And you're probably out of the war, at least out of the trenches anyway. I'll see if I can convince bonkers Melchett to post you somewhere nice, who knows maybe Paris?”

“Speaking of General ‘My brain’s so small it could be used as a Q-tip’ where’s that sickening pin pusher Darling, I expected him to be here with that stupid smile of his, overjoyed that I was on my death bed?”

“You aren't on your death bed” Leia sighed

“I said was”

Leia had gotten up and was looking out along the busy trench, filled with the wounded and narrowed her eyes, the way she did when she was confused. She went over to one of the trench nurses, leaving the Captain alone for a few minutes. She returned with a troubled look on her face.

“Well?” he asked

“They say I only returned with you Blackadder, no-one here has seen Captain Kevin Darling since we went over the top”

“Well the blighters gone and got himself lost or shot, hasn't he” he said and was aware that she was walking over to one the remaining trench ladders and was beginning to climb it.

“You’re, you're not going back over the top for the glorified secretary with a pencil fetish are you?”

Leia gulped and Blackadder could see she was trembling as she put on her tin helmet.

“Afraid so Captain, as much of a creep Darling is, he is one of my soldier’s and I can't leave him behind.”

“Yes you can” he insisted, but she was gone, off over the top for the second time that day.


	3. Chapter 3

Captain Kevin Darling was dying. He was pretty sure of that as he was lying in no-man’s land, Major Stewart and Captain Blackadder had left him for dead in this god-forsaken place with the smell of death all around him. A bullet had grazed his hip and now he couldn't feel his lower left side let alone move his leg. Suddenly he felt himself being lifted up out of the pool of mud and his own blood. His bad arm was thrown over the person’s shoulder and he was able to see the view in front of him, broken trees, barbed wire everywhere along with heavy thick smoke rising into the air from a mine that had just gone off in the distance and that ever present stench of death in the air. With his good hand he managed to reach his service revolver he had been given by the General before he was sent off to his death. He jammed it into the unknown person’s ribs 

“You better put me down you Gerry scum or so help me” he hissed at them

“Or you'll what?” a very familiar voice said “You’ll paper clip me to death? If you haven’t noticed thicko we’re going towards the British trenches and if you shoot me I'll make sure the last I do is punch your sorry face in”

“M-major?” he asked looking across into the face of Leia Stewart.

“Expecting someone else?” she asked with a grimace

“I-i thought you were a German”

“Yes I became aware of that when you hissed ‘Gerry scum’ into my ear along with a bit of spit”

“S-sorry” 

They were at the edge of the British trench now and the Major lowered him in.


	4. Chapter 4

Captain Blackadder could believe what he was seeing. He had been taken to the infirmary and was lying on a nice comfy bed with his leg bandaged up and the cut above his eye cleaned. Unbelievably Baldrick had survived…for now. 

“Baldrick” he said 

“Yes sir?” Baldrick came over with his hand bandage

“How come you didn't get wounded like everyone else in here?”

“Ah but you see Cap ‘in, I did in fact get wounded”

“You did?” there really was a silver lining on every cloud

“Yes I did” Baldrick began unwinding the large bandage on his hand and revealed several small red scratches on the back of his hand “You see sir?” the monkey man said

“No Baldrick I do not see anything”

“But they're right here sir” the Private put his grubby hands under the Captain’s nose, the stink was very apparent.

“Yes, thank you Baldrick, I can see them.” Blackadder readied himself “You're telling me that you fell over at the start of the big push onto some barbed wire?”

“It was a very large piece of barbed wire”

“Right, come here”

Baldrick came towards his Captain and was rewarded with a large fist to the face.

The Major had just come walking through the door, limping slightly supporting an unconscious Captain Darling who was bleeding profusely from his right hip and was being assisted by two nurses. Blackadder was astonished. He wasn't expecting to see either of them again. It was unlikely that someone would survive going out into no-man’s land one time, let alone two consecutive times. The two nurses helped her get Darling onto the bed opposite him and Leia walked over and sat down on the empty one on his left. She looked exhausted and haunted. Edmund wasn't surprised, after all she had seen, but he tried to make light of it.

“Let me guess, he wouldn't stop talking about Doris, and the Croydon cricket team?”

“Wouldn't shut up” she said with a small sad smile

“I know the feeling” he said “A few exchanges with Lieutenant George about tiddlywinks and you want to kill him” 

She looked around “Where is the Lieutenant? I can't see him”

“When I was being brought through and having the sodding German bullet being taken out of my leg, I saw him being rushed   
past the door, it looked serious.”

At that moment the other Captain regained conscious and sat bolt upright. “W-where am I?”

“You are safe sir” Baldrick walked over to Darling “Nobody in ‘ere is gonna hurt you”

“Apart from me that is” Blackadder muttered to himself, however Darling heard him.

“I charged with you Blackadder” Darling said

“And weren't we bloody idiots for doing it”

The was a sudden sharp intake of breath to his left and both him and Darling turned to look and immediately wished they hadn't, Major Stewart was sitting on her bed, coat off and her shirt rolled up revealing the side of her stomach. It was covered in blood and still bleeding. She appeared to have been shot on the right side of her stomach and had other various cuts from crawling over barbed wire, Blackadder supposed. He had never considered that she could be hurt. After all she had carried him and Darling out of no-man’s land by herself and hadn’t mentioned being in pain at all.

“Well I say Major that’s a jolly bad wound you’ve got there” a horribly optimistic voice said from behind him.

“George, how wonderful that you could join us in this little slice of hell” Blackadder began as he turned round to greet the Lieutenant but stopped when he saw…

 

“Yes it’s rather nasty isn’t?” George said with a frown

“Erm” was all Edmund could manage. George was sitting in a wheelchair and there was a stump where the Lieutenant’s right foot should have been and George himself was sickly pale.

“W-what happened George?” Darling asked from across the room 

“Well as a matter of fact old chap, I stood on a grenade and a faulty one at that. The lovely nurses here say that I was very lucky I only lost my foot.”

“Well quite.” Blackadder returned his gaze to Leia who had been brought by one of the nurses some alcohol, a pair of tweezers, a needle and some thread. She was currently extracting the bullet from her side using the tweezers. Edmund could see that the wound wasn't very deep and was surprised that he felt relieved for her.

She had extracted the bullet from in her body and was currently sterilising the wound and cuts with the alcohol. She got out the needle and threaded it. Through gritted teeth she managed to sew up the bullet hole, quite neatly Blackadder thought.

“Ahh” Leia sighed with relief when she had finished and held the bullet out in front of her as though for inspection “A Maschinengewehr 7.92 millimetre bullet” she said with pride.

“How on earth do you know that?” Blackadder asked her

“Well it say’s 7.92mm on the bottom here.” She pointed “And the other is just an educated guess, a common german machine gun.”

“Y-you're quite right Major” Darling said, he shifted uncomfortably “But perhaps you could…” he trailed off

“I could what?”

“I think what this desk shagging imbecile means Stewart, is that he doesn't like the sight of your blood” Blackadder said looking slyly at the Captain

“Honestly Blackadder I-” Darling started

Blackadder chucked Leia’s blood stained coat across onto Darling's bed “Get it away from me!” Darling squeaked

“Just as I thought Darling” Blackadder smirked

“Darling, you were lying in a pool of your own blood when I found you in no-man’s land, what’s changed?”

“Nothing ma'am, I just don't like seeing stuff being poked into the body” he shuddered 

‘Clearly thinking about the tweezers’ Blackadder thought

Leia cut a finale thread “Done” she lifted her shirt up exposing a rather white stomach sporting multiple cuts, cleaned now and a bullet wound neatly sewed up in cross stitch in black thread. “How does it look?” she asked Blackadder

“Like a bullet wound sewed up with thread”

“Excellent”


	5. Chapter 5

It was early in the morning and Blackadder had not slept well. He wasn't the only one though. He had been woken many times during the course of the night by his nightmares of no-man’s land and to the shouts and moans of others in the ward experiencing theirs. One time he had woken to whispers in the dark behind him. He had turned over to see George sitting up in his bed with Baldrick kneeling at the end, resting his arms on the metal bed frame. Leia had been sitting crossed legged at the end of the bed holding a candle which she was staring into. Perkins, Wilson and Peters were among the other soldiers sitting on and around the bed. It had been hard to tell in the dark but he thought it had been Wallace speaking,

“When I get home” he had whispered “I'm gonna marry me bird, if she'll still have me with this burn on me face.”

Then George had whispered “I hope I get home in time for the boat race in July. I may not be able to walk but by Jove I can still move my arms so I can row.”

“When I get home” Baldrick had added in a loud whisper “I'm going to get myself a nice big turnip”

He was then shushed by many of the company

Blackadder had closed his eyes again.

“W-when I get home,” a voice from behind the gathering had said “I-1 want this war to be over”

Without needing to open his eyes again Blackadder could tell who the voice belonged to. It had come across the room from opposite him, and had a slight stammer. Darling.

A solemn murmur of agreement had then passed through the gathering and Blackadder heard them get up and return to their beds. He had fallen into a dreamless sleep not long after.

Now the Lieutenant was asleep next to him and Baldrick was god knows where. A few tired nurses were redressing injuries to those who needed them and distributing the soldier’s morning meal of the usual glue flavoured gloop that they called porridge. But today Blackadder was too weak to argue when they handed him a bowl of sludge and when one of the nurses began undressing his wound to clean it and redress it he didn't even pass a dirty remark at her. Everything seemed to have lost all the colour and noise that it had had yesterday and the ward silent apart from the clinking of steel spoons on the chipped grey bowls. After a few mouthfuls of the foul stuff Edmund began feeling more like himself again and small conversations were being struck up across the ward. He turned to Stewart. She was sitting and her short, dirty blonde hair had fallen forward and obscured her face, exposing the back of her neck. The Captain was suddenly aware of how small and pale she looked sitting on the bed, slowly eating her ‘porridge’.

“Stewart” he said

Leia looked up, her grey eyes tired but, Edmund was relieved to see, still holding some of their former spark unlike so many others in the room with them.

“Last night, what did you want when you got home?” 

Leia looked surprised “I didn't realise you were awake”

“I have this special sense. Whenever Baldrick is about to say something pointless or stupid a little bell rings to alert me to the problem.” He was pleased to see that her eyes lighten to that remark, even if she did not laugh.

“When I get home…” she thought “…I want it to feel like home, not just a house with some furniture in it. What about you?”

“Hmm.” He pondered the question “When I get home, I want to be young and reckless, then I want to be middle aged and rich and then I want to be old and annoy people by pretending I'm deaf.” At this Leia smiled.

“Are you finished with your breakfast Cap’ in?” A small dog turd had just walked over to them.

“As a matter of fact I am” Blackadder poured out the gloop in his bowl into the Private’s hands. Leia sighed at him.

“Here Baldrick you can have mine as well” she held out her bowl to Baldrick whose hands were full with the Captains rejected breakfast, a little bit, Edmund noticed, fell to the floor and hit it with a soft ‘ploop’. Leia was studying the problem at hand. Eventually she shrugged and poured her sludgy breakfast on top of Blackadder’s.

“You are too kind Major” Baldrick tried tipping a none existent hat at them but just got porridge on his face. He walked off, leaving a trail of porridge as he went. 

Blackadder was suddenly struck with a thought. A question in fact, that he had always meant to ask Leia but had never seem to have gotten round to.

“How are you a Major here, let alone in the army?” he asked, pressing on he added “I mean, you are a girl and girls only act as nurses.”

Leia laughed, properly, not filled with sarcasm or sorrow but a proper laugh, a kind that Edmund had not heard for some time (from any sane person anyways).

“I was wondering when someone was going to ask me that.” She said smiling “A long story short. Darling here simply sent the wrong person, the wrong letter.”

Darling had clearly heard her and looked up

“What?” his eye twitched

“My letter Darling, the one you sent by accident”

This had been discussed between the two of them before as Darling went bright red and hissed “I did no such thing” sounding constipated

‘Probably the porridge’ Blackadder thought

“I wanted to join the army in 1912” Leia went on explaining “But the only way I could do that without disguising myself as a boy, was to become a nurse. I sent letter off saying that I wished to join the army as a field nurse. Darling was in charge of writing back to letters, like those or otherwise and it just so happened at the time that there was a L Stewart, me, and a M Stewart who needed a letter from his commanding officer”

“Melchett?” Blackadder butted in.

“Yes. To be promoted to Captain. Darling had already written my letter but unfortunately for M Stewart and fortunately for me Darling got the General to sign another letter addressed to me telling me that I was promoted to the rank of Captain. I trained as a field nurse for a few months and then assumed my duty as a Captain. Over the course of the next few years leading up to the war I became a Major. Melchett is so dim he didn't notice I wasn't a man and Darling was and still is too embarrassed to admit he had got something wrong.”

“Ahh so you being a nurse explains why you were able to sew up your bullet hole” Blackadder said “But how were you able to use a gun etcetera?”

“I was training as a field nurse; you kind of need to know how to shoot a gun if you're going out into the field.”

George was awake now and having his bandage reapplied. He was gulping down his breakfast quickly, which didn’t surprise Blackadder, George was always hungry and between mouthfuls he was telling the nurse helping him the strange dream he had had last night…in great detail.

“Yes it was really rather odd,” the Lieutenant looked thoughtful. 

‘A great achievement your part’ Blackadder thought

“I dreamt” George continued blissfully unaware of Blackadder’s running commentary “That I was a prince and I wore a really stupid wig” he gestured to his head

‘You already look stupid now’ Blackadder continued with his internal monologue

“And, haha, you won't believe this” George was waving his gloopy spoon at the nurse “That Captain Blackadder” the spoon was now pointed in Blackadder’s general direction. General direction because George was almost doubling up from laughter “That Captain Blackadder, was my butler!” he had managed to compose himself for a few moments to deliver this let down of a sentence before doubling up with laughter again “I mean can you imagine that, Captain, you being my butler!”

“No George I can't and I frankly don't wish too if you were just as idiotic in the dream as you are here.”

“I-I mean it’s completely ridiculous, sir…but just so funny!” he proceeded to start laughing again. Blackadder decided to block out this and the pointless conversation that they had just had. 

Blackadder picked up a copy of King and Country; yes he had stooped that low. But it was either this or listen to the prattling idiot next to him. Across from him Darling was filling out some official looking forms.

‘He just doesn't stop’ Blackadder thought. Leia was next to him cleaning the bullet that had recently vacated her body.

Before he could give himself another reason to kill himself there and then, a reason presented its self of its own accord.

“BAAAH” a noise echoed down to corridor to the quiet ward.

‘Fortune vomits in my eiderdown once again’ Blackadder thought.


	6. Chapter 6 and Epilogue

General Melchett walked in through the doors. The already quiet room got quieter upon his arrival. Half of the room saluted. The other half did not. Blackadder was among the latter half and Darling was not. Blackadder raised an eyebrow at him but the pencil sharpening slime ball did not react, keeping his eyes fixed on the General.

“Gentlemen” Melchett stopped walking when he was in the centre of the room “I have some bad news”

“You are bad news” Blackadder muttered.

Leia must have heard him because she snorted at the remark.

“What’s so funny?” Melchett asked her

“Nothing sir, I think I may have just caught a bug after going over the top yesterday.”

“And that is precisely the reason I have come to talk to all of you today instead to going for my weekly moustache trimming.”

Blackadder was not feeling very optimistic of where this conversation was going.

“I have come to talk to you about the great and terrible loss that we suffered yesterday. We lost a few soldiers true, but that is not the loss that my heart felt and I am sure many of you agree. The loss that I have felt most greatly was of someone very close to my heart,” he spotted Darling sitting near him “Darling!”

“M-me sir?” the other Captains face lit up

“What? No Darling, I am of talking of,” he spotted Blackadder on his other side “Blackadder!”

“Blackadder?” Darling looked confused and betrayed

“No Darling will you listen to me and stop interrupting, I am of course talking about Larry!” Melchett said enraged

“L-larry sir?” Darling asked

“Yes Larry!” 

“T-the pigeon?”

If there was a large wooden table in front of him Blackadder was sure he would have hit his or Baldrick’s head on it. A pigeon. He had taken three years of the General’s so called ‘quirks’ waiting to go over the top and be killed on Melchett order and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Before he could give the General a piece of his mind Leia must have seen him tense up and realise what he was going to do. She rolled up her own copy of King and Country and hit him on the back of the head discreetly. When he turned to look at her she gave him a curt shake of the head and gave a pointed look over his right shoulder.

“A pigeon?” a voice behind him questioned “Was it a particularly brave pigeon?”

George. Of course. 

“Of course he was George. Larry was braver than most men in here.”

“Well you see sir I’ve lost my foot to a grenade, so this pigeon must be pretty brave.” All eyes turned to the Lieutenant “Darling here got shot in the shoulder and hip, poor chap and” Melchett had gone beetroot “Captain Blackadder might not be able to walk again and many soldiers in the troop here lost their lives but you seem to be worry about a bird.” George frowned “It just doesn't seem right sir.”

“HOW DARE YOU GEORGE, I COULD HAVE YOU COURT MARTIALED AND SHOT FOR THIS.” The last time Blackadder had seen the General this angry was when Emily Davison had walked out in front of the King’s horse at the derby in 1913.

“Y-you think that threat scares any of us anymore?” said a voice quietly from behind the General.

“Darling?” Blackadder said, surprised. Darling had always been, in the Generals words, a pin pushing, desk sucking blotter jotter.  
Darling gulped “We’ve b-been through hell and back again. Y-you think being stood up against a wall and s-shot scares us, after all we've seen?”

All the soldiers murmured in agreement 

“What’s happened to you Darling?!” if the Generals eyebrows went any higher they would fly off his face. “You've always been a sane and reasonable man amongst this rabble, what’s changed you man!?”

“Y-you sent me off to die” Captain Darling said this much quieter than the previous statement.

“I can’t hear you Darling, speak up!”

Darling’s eye twitched “I-1 said you sent me off to die sir. You sent me off to die with a twinkle in your eye and-and a smile of your face sir” 

“I sent you off to glory man. To die a heroes death! The only reason I didn’t come myself was because I am too old to fight battles!”

“I-I think sir, that we are all tired. A-and we need some time to recover.” Darling realised he may have gone to far managed to stammer out a crude excuse. Thankfully the General bought it.

“Hmm, yes I think that would be best Darling. You are all still too delicate for me to break such terrible news to.”

The General turned round and went out the way he came.

“So he thinks sending men to their deaths against their will justifies that?” Leia said after Melchett had left.

“Stewart the man is mad. I ran into a haze of German bullets yesterday with nothing but a baton and service revolver as defence, and took a bullet to my leg for it.” Blackadder spoke up “And he’s more worried about a bird than the loss of human life. But we don't need to worry about him anymore; none of us do” he looked around at the small group, Leia, Darling, Baldrick, George and himself, Edmund Blackadder “As far as we are concerned, the war is over for us.”

 

Epilogue 

The war went on for one more year. The Great War; 1914-1918. None of them ever quite recovered from their injuries. Captain Kevin Darling was able to walk again but did so with a pronounced limp and his nervous tick and stammer got worse. Major Leia Stewart ended getting a mild stroke from blood poisoning, given to her by the lead bullet she wears round her neck. George got what he called

“A good old peg leg fit for a pirate king!” and was content to live out the rest of his days on his families large estate. But he invited all of them round for the whole summer every year. 

Due to his god awful hygiene Baldrick’s cuts got infected and he can no longer use his hand. Not that it matters, he never gave humanity any kind of gift with it, except for a lingering odour. 

After the First World War they went their separate way, but they all felt ghosts of the war following them. And the ghosts did.

 

 

Sorry. I forgot me. Which is unusual. My name is Edmund Blackadder. I was young and reckless before the war, now I'm old and rich and annoy people by pretending I can't walk because of my war wound and that I can’t hear out of one ear because a shell exploded near it.

Good luck everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised that i never gave a proper description of what the Major looks like.  
> She looks a bit like this.
> 
> http://sharandula.deviantart.com/art/portrait-259776103
> 
> I do not own the picture, all credit goes to sharandula on deviantart. Go check her art out it's amazing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story I have ever put out onto the internet so bear with me.  
> Feedback is most appreciated.


End file.
